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FOREWORD BY THE MINISTER

Dear friends of Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Cooperation,

The year 2020 has shown us how a sin­gle dis­rup­tive ele­ment can change the world in an instant and how eco­nom­ic and social sys­tems can be under threat of being under­mined in just a few weeks. The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has shak­en the entire world, and has result­ed in an increase in pover­ty with approx­i­mate­ly 150 mil­lion peo­ple at risk of mov­ing into extreme pover­ty, accord­ing to the World Bank’s estimates.

A new emer­gency has there­fore arisen in our pri­or­i­ty part­ner coun­tries, and in the coun­tries where our human­i­tar­i­an activ­i­ties and those of devel­op­ment NGOs are being deliv­ered: COVID-19. Frag­ile health sys­tems have found them­selves under even more pres­sure, access to edu­ca­tion has been lim­it­ed, with near­ly 2 bil­lion chil­dren deprived of their right to go to school in spring 2020, and the socio-eco­nom­ic con­se­quences are expect­ed to be dev­as­tat­ing and to elim­i­nate years of progress.

Financ­ing for devel­op­ment remains a major chal­lenge, and that is why Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion has main­tained its com­mit­ment to keep offi­cial devel­op­ment assis­tance (ODA) at 1% of gross nation­al income, despite the pandemic’s impact on the nation­al econ­o­my. ODA remains vital and any bud­get cut has imme­di­ate detri­men­tal reper­cus­sions in devel­op­ing coun­tries, par­tic­u­lar­ly with regard to access to basic social ser­vices. An inter­rup­tion in aid, even tem­porar­i­ly, has a strong impact

on our part­ners’ work on the ground, par­tic­u­lar­ly that of devel­op­ment NGOs (NGDOs). We have there­fore tak­en care to ensure that the bud­get con­straints imposed by the cri­sis do not have an adverse impact on civ­il soci­ety and that finan­cial flex­i­bil­i­ty is demon­strat­ed in real­lo­cat­ing funds and imple­ment­ing actions as part of the response to COVID-19.

Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion has had to show flex­i­bil­i­ty by react­ing quick­ly and res­olute­ly to sup­port its part­ner coun­tries. I am delight­ed that we have been able to con­tribute EUR70 mil­lion to the COVID-19 response and to con­tain­ing its socio-eco­nom­ic con­se­quences. This sup­port has also made it pos­si­ble to strength­en the links with our part­ners for imple­men­ta­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly at Euro­pean lev­el: the Team Europe approach bears wit­ness to the joint efforts of Mem­ber States to sup­port devel­op­ing coun­tries in respond­ing to the crisis.

COVID-19 appeared when coun­tries and their peo­ples were already bear­ing the brunt of a num­ber of human­i­tar­i­an crises: the UN esti­mates that human­i­tar­i­an needs asso­ci­at­ed with the con­se­quences of armed con­flicts and nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, such as forced dis­place­ments, food inse­cu­ri­ty or health emer­gen­cies, are at their high­est his­tor­i­cal level.

In 2020, Luxembourg’s human­i­tar­i­an aid con­tributed to human­i­tar­i­an relief efforts in sev­er­al crises, such as in Nagorno-Karabakh. Per­son­nel and telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions equip­ment were also deployed to Sudan via emer​gency​.lu, the oper­a­tional wing of Luxembourg’s human­i­tar­i­an activ­i­ties, to help with the estab­lish­ment of a refugee camp against the back­drop of the con­flict in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.

We have also signed an exten­sion to the emer​gency​.lu con­tract, a public/​private part­ner­ship of which I am par­tic­u­lar­ly proud and which I con­sid­er to be an ambas­sador for Luxembourg’s human­i­tar­i­an action across the globe.

Mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism remains a sig­nif­i­cant chan­nel for Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion. Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, we have been able to rely on inter­na­tion­al agen­cies and organ­i­sa­tions to imple­ment our ODA, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the health sphere. We have sig­nif­i­cant­ly increased our sup­port to the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO), with over EUR10 mil­lion. We have also par­tic­i­pat­ed in COV­AX, the inter­na­tion­al vac­cine shar­ing mech­a­nism, and have invest­ed EUR5 mil­lion in Gavi, the Vac­cine Alliance. Glob­al vac­ci­na­tion is vital in ensur­ing that no one is left behind.

We have just under a decade to achieve the Unit­ed Nations Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals. To help achieve this, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion is prepar­ing to work in an even more cross-cut­ting way, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the fields of gen­der equal­i­ty, cli­mate and the envi­ron­ment, all issues that need to be sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly inte­grat­ed into all devel­op­ment actions.

In the Sahel, above all, which is a pri­or­i­ty region for Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion inter­ven­tions and which faces many chal­lenges, both human­i­tar­i­an and those linked to devel­op­ment, cli­mate change has adverse con­se­quences for human well-being and has a sig­nif­i­cant impact on gen­der equality.

I would also like to point to the vital role that the pri­vate sec­tor and inclu­sive, inno­v­a­tive finance can play in pro­mot­ing eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment and inclu­sive growth: cre­at­ing activ­i­ty that gen­er­ates sus­tain­able income, par­tic­u­lar­ly for women, young peo­ple and small-scale farm­ers, will make it pos­si­ble to com­bat food inse­cu­ri­ty and reduce poverty.

In order for devel­op­ment poli­cies to suc­ceed, we must work togeth­er coher­ent­ly. To that end, in 2020 we draft­ed a joint Indica­tive Coop­er­a­tion Pro­gramme, Devel­op­ment – Cli­mate – Ener­gy’ with Cabo Verde, the first of its kind. It will be imple­ment­ed by LuxDev, Luxembourg’s devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion agency.

The year 2020 has been scarred by COVID-19 and inequal­i­ties world­wide have wors­ened: that is why we must redou­ble our efforts in order to counter the set­back caused by the health cri­sis. We have less than ten years to achieve the Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals and I count on the com­mit­ment of all Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Cooperation’s co-work­ers and vol­un­teers who are already work­ing to reach this objec­tive. You are the bedrock of Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and I thank you for your ded­i­ca­tion to our com­mon purpose.